Doctor Who Studied at UCI Says Her Eggs Were Misused

A doctor who studied at UC Irvine’s fertility clinic has filed suit against her former colleagues, joining more than 85 women who claim members of the elite staff took their eggs or embryos without consent, court records show.

The most recent suit to name Drs. Ricardo H. Asch, Sergio Stone and Jose Balmaceda was filed this week in Orange County Superior Court by Dr. Lila Schmidt, a San Diego fertility specialist who had a four-year fellowship at the now-closed Center for Reproductive Health.

The suit claims Asch and his associates misused Schmidt’s eggs along with the sperm of her ex-husband, David Garlinghouse, after the couple visited the clinic in 1991 and underwent several years of tests, harvesting procedures and two transplants.

Schmidt and Garlinghouse had a healthy daughter in the summer of 1993, but the suit claims the couple also found out in November 1995 that the center’s celebrated specialists had given their biological material to other women without permission.

The clinic, which closed in June 1995, is at the center of a vast medical scandal involving the improper handling of eggs and embryos. Asch, Stone and Balmaceda all deny intentional wrongdoing.

Asch, named by Schmidt’s attorney as the primary focus of the suit, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

For Schmidt, the shock of learning that as many as 12 of her 20 harvested eggs may have been misused was made worse by her professional relationship with Asch and others, her attorney said.

“She is so angry, so outraged,” attorney Melanie Blum of Orange said. “She feels unbelievably betrayed. She worked with [Asch], she trusted him, she looked up to him and admired him.”

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, also names five other doctors or officials at the clinic, along with the University of California Regents.